Summary: This article reports the American Heart Association’s warning about consuming too many sugary beverages. The consumption of soft drinks and other beverages leads to an unhealthy intake of sugar, according to the AHA. Additionally, this research finds that over the past few years, American’s have been consuming more and more sugar (150-300 calories more per day), with the bulk of them coming from beverages. The article also takes a critical look at some of the arguments made by sugar manufactures who claim that there is merely speculation on the matter.
Rhetorical Context: The source of this article is the Journal of the American Medical Association, which deals with nearly all matters concerning health. Since this article was found in an academic journal, the target audience is doctors, nutritionists, and medical experts. The author of this piece, Mike Mitka, is a specialist in the area of medicine, he primarily writes about food in relation to various diseases.
Evaluation: This article provided a decent amount of background information, which I will likely use in my public argument. I do not feel that this article went into very much depth about why sugary drinks are so harmful. In my opinion, the article needed more substance to really impact readers. However, there were a couple of interesting statistics in this article which I may be able to use in my argument.
